January 9 2009

While most folks want to have a debate between Microsoft's Office and Apple's iWork, I have fallen in love with the new kid on the block in the Mac-world, IBM's Lotus Symphony. Unlike Office and iWork, Symphony is free, which is a huge plus in the new economic scenario that companies and individual users find themselves in right now. I like the clean, lightweight and straightforward interface of Lotus Symphony. While this suite of productivity applications was released for Microsoft's Windows and Linux a bit more than a year ago, I believe that the recent release for the Mac OS X Leopard (Intel only) might be the kick-start this set of applications needs--Linux has a small market share and most people in the Windows world are imprisoned by Microsoft's hegemony. ...

Symphony, in my personal experience on my 2.4 ghz Macbook, is faster than OpenOffice and NeoOffice. Objectors to IBM's Lotus Symphony contend that it is a resource-hog, asking you to have 1 gig of ram if you want "performance optimization." I have those extra resources on my newer core2duo Macbook, so it is a non-issue for me or anyone else with newer hardware. Symphony has a tabbed interface that includes a simple web browser, and just feels more inviting to use than any of the open-source options, and the price is right--it's free!

What I really like here is the conclusion...

IBM's Lotus Symphony might just have the right combination of elements going for it--true cross-platform compatability, simple yet elegant interface, speed, big-name corporate backing, zero cost, compatibility with other productivity suites, and a generalized disliking of Microsoft's corporate hegemony--that allows it to take off.